


Happiness Bubbling Over Like a Teapot

by spoilers



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 12:29:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7801894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoilers/pseuds/spoilers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natsume gets a (shockingly mundane) cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happiness Bubbling Over Like a Teapot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merit/gifts).



Taki, Tanuma, and Natsume walked home from school together whenever possible, and that day was no exception; the weather was beautiful, the sky was clear, there were no fat cats following them around begging for treats or alcohol (much to Taki’s dismay)—it was as normal and innocent a day as possible, and so Natsume didn’t immediately think anything was unusual when he first heard the scratching sound of a small animal off to the side of the road.

“One second,” he said, stepping off the path towards the source of the sound. There was a tiny rustling noise behind the tree. Bracing himself, Natsume shifted the leaves to find a tanuki, one of its legs caught in a strange pile of sticks, struggling in the grass.

“Oh, that’s all you are,” he said to himself. The tanuki was still struggling; he approached cautiously, keeping his hand low to the ground. “Don’t try to scratch me, okay? There.” He shifted the top stick to free the tanuki’s leg. After a moment, it realized it was free, sat up to look at Natsume, and then scurried off into the bushes.

“It was just a trapped tanuki,” Natsume said, returning to Taki and Tanuma on the path.

“What was?” Taki asked. 

“You didn’t hear anything?”

They both looked… concerned, though not in the way that most disheartened him, as if they thought he was crazy, that he still half expected to see. They looked concerned because they understood, even if—especially if—they couldn’t see it themselves. For a moment, he felt grateful that he had the both of them; he knew just how lonely things could be, both from his own experiences and through the stories of his grandmother, without anyone to support her. Guilt that he was making them worry quickly replaced it. He opened his mouth to assuage them, but Tanuma beat him to the punch.

Tanuma struck an over-the-top thinking pose, scanning Natsume up and down. “Well… you don’t look like you’ve been attacked by anything, or like you’re missing any limbs, so… I say we don’t worry about it.”

They all laughed, and went back on their way home. When Natsume woke up the next day with a cold, he wasn’t sure if it was just dumb luck or, as Sensei insisted after hearing the story—

“Dumb human meddling!” Nyanko-sensei hissed in his ear as Touko-san rummaged around the kitchen for the thermometer. Natsume sat heavily in a chair at the table, massaging his throat with one hand, before sneezing twice in quick succession.

“Oh, Takashi-kun, lie down,” Touko-san said, her brow creasing in worry. “You look so flushed. I’ll help you back upstairs, here.”

And she did, despite his protests all the way up.

“You probably got rabies from the stupid tanuki,” Nyanko-sensei said, once she’d left his bedroom with promises of tea and soup that he could do nothing to dissuade her from. Natsume swatted at him idly, before rolling over back into his futon.

He woke up to find Taki and Tanuma in his room, both kneeling next to him and looking vaguely guilty.

“Don’t sit up!” Taki said, as Natsume moved to do just that. “We just came by to drop off your work for school.”

“And also say sorry,” Tanuma said quickly. “You think this is… was this related to what happened yesterday?”

“It wasn’t,” said a voice from behind him. Natsume turned in shock, but he was the only one who did; Hinoe was hanging out the side of the window. “The tanuki you saw doesn’t have that sort of ability. This is just your human germs.”

“Natsume?” Tanuma asked, and Natsume quickly explained.

“There’s a youkai who was friends with my grandmother here. She thinks it’s just a cold.”

“I could have told you that,” Sensei grumbled, stretching lazily next to Natsume; he seemed oblivious to the way Taki gripped her knees besides him, as if to stop herself from reaching out to him, though Natsume caught the motion out of the corner of his eye.

“Here,” Hinoe said, producing a surgical mask and an old lacquered tea kettle and placing both inside the window. “One is from me. You use these to make sure you don’t make others sick, right? Take it and get better.”

“Ah, yeah,” Natsume said, sitting up to reach for the mask—but before he could get out from under the covers, the teapot sprouted four hairy legs and snatched the mask up.

He shouted, as did Taki and Tanuma; with a clatter, the legs snapped back into the tea kettle, the mask laying innocently next to it. Hinoe had disappeared from the window with what sounded suspiciously like a chuckle.

“It moved!” Tanuma whispered urgently, just as Touko-san called “Takashi-kun?” up the stairs.

“It’s nothing!” he yelled back, his voice somewhat hoarse from the cold. When he turned back, the tea kettle was sitting innocently on the floor, almost in reach of them, on top of the mask. Tanuma knelt forward to reach for it, and with a pop, it turned into—

“The tanuki from yesterday!” Natsume said, as it scurried away from Tanuma’s hand.

“Is it like the folktale?” Taki asked, stifling a laugh behind her hand. “Bunbaku Chagama?”

“You rescued it from a trap, and now you get to make money with a shape-shifting tanuki?” Tanuma asked, rocking back on his knees, the same tone of amusement in his voice. In response, the tanuki popped back into a teapot, which Taki politely applauded.

“I think it just wanted to say thank you,” Natsume said, touching the teapot-tanuki briefly before collecting the mask.

“Or it wants you to have tea,” Tanuma said thoughtfully.

“We can get that for you instead,” Taki said, standing up and brushing her knees. “You just rest. We’ll be back in just a minute!”

“You don’t have to do that,” Natsume protested; it was bad enough Touko-san was spending her time when he just had a cold, much less his friends feeling obligated to do so as well.

“Don’t be silly,” she said, as Tanuma nodded and got to his feet as well. “We just want you to feel better.”

 

“Hey.”

Hinoe looked up at the greeting, and then jumped to her feet; Reiko was wearing a surgical mask on her face, and her voice, though muffled, was noticeably nasally. 

In a flash, Hinoe had one hand pressed to Reiko’s forehead, the other clutching her chest in alarm. “Reiko! What’s happened to you! Ah, are you burning up?”

“It’s fine,” Reiko laughed, waiving her hand away. “I’ll be over it in no time.” Despite her words, she shivered slightly in the breeze, and turned her head to cough.

“You crazy girl, what are you doing out here? Go get some sleep.”

“What I need is fresh air,” Reiko said, as she crouched beneath the tree. She leaned against it with her eyes closed for a moment, before something brushed against her hand. “Ah, morning, Bunbuku.”

The tanuki stepped carefully around the tree, then with a pop, turned into a teapot. Reiko laughed again, resting her hand on the lid.

“Don’t do that, you won’t like the heat.” The teapot wobbled in agreement, but remained resolutely as a kettle. “Do I look like the sort of person who’s good at making tea? I don’t even have a fire, come on.”

“We can make a fire,” Hinoe said, a flint and a stick gleaming in her hand. The teapot rattled with an angry clatter.

“Sit down and keep me company instead.”

Hinoe sat, and the three of them sat in silence for a few moments, punctuated at last by a powerful sneeze from Reiko.

“The mask is convenient,” Hinoe said, angling her shoulder closer towards Reiko. “Is that supposed to trap the illness?”

“Yeah,” Reiko said, her voice particularly thick. “So I can’t pass it to you guys.”

Hinoe tossed her head back with a laugh. “Youkai can’t catch human diseases, you silly girl.”

“Hah, yeah,” Reiko said, and leaned back on Hinoe’s shoulder. “I guess you can’t. So much for being considerate.”

There was a pop, and the tanuki wiggled under Reiko’s arm to rest in her lap. Reiko’s eyelashes fluttered, and she almost fell asleep, until a sudden sneeze both woke her and startled Hinoe into retracting her shoulder.

“That doesn’t mean you can just sneeze on me! And sleeping on me! The nerve!”

Reiko’s laughter echoed through the trees.

 

Natsume opened his eyes in his bedroom, the tanuki dozing under one arm, Nyanko-sensei curled next to the other. Downstairs, he could hear Taki and Tanuma’s voices, too far away to pick up on specific words; there was a cup of tea, lukewarm, sitting within reach on the floor.

He sat up with a smile to grab it, and the tanuki lifted his head as he moved. After a moment, Natsume offered the cup to the tanuki. “Were those your memories?” he asked, as the tanuki nosed towards the tea. “I want to thank you… for watching out for my grandmother. I think she really appreciated it. It's hard... sometimes, to accept help, especially when you aren't used to it, so I'm glad that... I'm glad.”

Nyanko-sensei yawned, and Natsume scooped him into his arms despite his protests. “I'm going to thank all of the youkai who spent their time with my grandmother. Her friends who cared about her, like Hinoe, and Bunbuku Chagama, and who were there for her when she needed someone.”

“Not me!” Sensei said, insistent from Nastume’s lap.

“Not you,” Natsume agreed idly, then turned to the doorway as Touko-san entered.

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” she said, her face breaking out in a relieved smile. “Your friends are downstairs—oh, what a lovely teapot! Where did that come from?”

Natsume glanced at the kettle sitting next to the tea cup with a small smile. He placed his hand on top of it, where he could just barely perceive it wiggling under his hand. “It is, isn’t it? A friend brought it by. It’s helped me feel better already.”

**Author's Note:**

> The story of [Bunbuku Chagama](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunbuku_Chagama) on Wikipedia.


End file.
